ajodasso

mer_moon

tithenai

sevillalost

And you know, I still haven't explained the hat. Soon, soon. Onward. (Heh. If you watch closely (not that you'd want to) you can see I have trouble multi-tracking. I leave out some important info during the opening remarks. I don't think the audience noticed, though.)

Our readers were Ernest Lilley, Michael Bishop, Amal El-Mohtar and Catherynne Valente, Lyn Gardner, Greer Gilman, Mary Alexandra Agner, Francesca Forrest, Lila Garrott, Caitlyn Paxson, Darrell Schweitzer, Sonya Taaffe, Leah Bobet, Julia Rios, myself, Greer Woodward, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Erik Amundsen and Jessica Paige Wick (pictures of almost all the readers, plus which poems they read, here) with Rhysling Award Chairman Drew Morse deciding to forgo his poem and simply read out the winners — and there was good reason why, as you will see. Our reading actually went over time, and programming director Eric Van (who was in the audience) said it was okay for us to go over, so long as it wasn't too far over, so to speak. So kudos to him.

One of the highlights of the reading was hearing Michael read his 1979 Rhysling Award winning poem "For the Lady of a Physicist." I'm actually quite familiar with the poem, but Michael's spry reading gave it a wry energy that brought something new to the piece. It was delightful.

One of the great things about the Rhysling Slan has been the ability to attract past winners and get them to read, and Michael became the latest to join that tradition. By being host of the Rhysling Reading for the past few years, I've gotten to hear Joe Haldeman, Theodora Goss, Sonya Taaffe, Geoffrey Landis, Lucius Shepard and Peter Payack all read their winning poems. And (most of) you haven't. Yes, I'm gloating.

But Michael's poem was hardly the only highlight. I always enjoy poetry when it's performed, not just read, and tithenai and yuki_onna delivered when they came onstage to share "Damascus Divides the Lovers by Zero, or the City is Never Finished."

There's wasn't the only performance: sevenravens recited her Rhysling nominee "To the Royal Society of Cryptozoologists from the Concerned Daughter of a Member" and I performed both my quickie Rhysling nom "Return of Zombie Teen Angst" and Neil Gaiman's "Conjunctions" from Mythic Delirium 20. Anita tried to film me, but I moved around too much (I like to walk down the aisle when I do this.) I am the Unfilmable Poet.

But hey! The real highlight of this reading came last. I mentioned that Drew nobly skipped his own poem and went ahead and read out the winners. That's because he and he alone knew that this year, for the first, one of the winners was actually in the audience! (Um, as opposed to being the MC of the ceremony.) The result ... well, see below.

Jay Lake’s Green exists on the fringes of the steampunkery which he had puffing and chugging over our heads in Mainspring and Escapement. Otherwise, he does something in keeping with both previous books: provides a rich, textured (quasi) secondary world. The tight narrative lens comes via the titular character, who, for so much of the first half of the novel cannot remember her name. She became the victim of child trafficking from the Stone Coast to another kingdom run by the Factor. Sold for a pouch of gold by a widower father to a man named Federo (also called the maggot-man), she is dragged away from the paddies of her homeland. Of particular poignant import is her memory and longing for the ox Endurance. Yes, an ox. He’s important. Read the book.

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